BonFX | Page 29 of 62 | Typography & Graphic Design Blog

How to draw a spider with 3D Boxes

September 12, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

3D Doodle Boxes is now available for free in the Mac App Store for a limited time. Get it while it’s free, and leave us some feedback on the app! It’s super easy to draw 3d boxes with it. It’s like Minecraft without the gameplay. It’s so easy, I whipped up this Super Black Widow in a few minutes. What a hoot. So, you can doodle 3d boxes in your sketchbook, or you can take your 3d sketches to the next level and fire up 3D Doodle Boxes and draw whatever you can think in no time. 3D Doodle Boxes in the Mac App Store So here is today’s 3d Doodle Boxes sketch!

How to draw in 3D the easy way with 3D Doodle Boxes

August 30, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Update: 3D Doodle Boxes is now available in the Mac App Store. Free for a limited time! Try it today!

3D Doodle Boxes will be available on the Mac App Store very soon. We’ve been working on this on and off for the last couple years as a labor of love. Now that it’s as fun and easy to use as we hoped, it’s ready for the world of doodlers to try it and have as much fun as we have had with it. … [Read More]

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Obsession with Originality is a Trap

July 18, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

“Allowing influences into your work is one of the ways that you expand your expressive range. Designers enrich their work — not diminish it — by looking for ways to ‘incorporate’ new and radical modes of expression into their work, especially from places outside contemporary design. Shutting out influences because of an obsession with ‘originality’ is a trap. But you have to be able to acknowledge the debt to your sources. Copyists never own up to it; the talented always do. That’s the difference.”
—Adrian Shaughnessy, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul

Yo, Font-Addict! Make sure to check out The Big Book of Font Combinations. Go grab a copy from Amazon or B&N, or grab the DISCOUNTED ebook PDF digital download version (40% OFF the hardcover retail price!) from the BonFX Store, and stare at all 350+ examples of informative font combinations for web and print. You know you want to!

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Is Originality an Absolute?

July 17, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

“I don’t believe in originality as an absolute, I think it’s more to do with interesting twists on existing forms. Borrowing from the Modernist designers of the recent past, for instance, is not plagiarism; it’s more a continuation of the processes and ideas that they set in motion. I’m influenced by Polish poster art of the 1960’s, which was influenced by Pop Art and Surrealism, and which in turn appropriated commercial art, comic book art, cinema and Victorian engravings, etc. I think the key to whether it’s good or not lies in the viewer’s response to a piece of design. Do they say “I’ve seen it before” or, “I’ve seen it before but not in that way.”
—Julian House

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: The Delusional Quest for Originality

July 16, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

“Most designers are untroubled by the notion of originality, but others are obsessed with it, and I see many problems caused by the delusional quest for originality. In my view originality is an overrated and misunderstood quality in contemporary graphic design. Copying is bad, no question. Infringing someone’s copyright for personal gain is immoral, not to mention illegal in most countries. But the only people who copy are the terminally second-rate and the downright dishonest, whereas the good designer freely borrows and adapts from sources in precisely the way artists have done for centuries. And furthermore, the good designer readily admits to this ‘appropriation.’ It is a quality of many good designers that their influences and sources are clearly visible and readily acknowledged.”
—Adrian Shaughnessy, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul